Dusk
by iCaple
Summary: An update to a previously dated story. Salle Silver's latest mark may cost everything she's worked for, and Gibbs' team is on her heels after series of "coincidences." Will she adapt to this new world, or will all things finally be illuminated? New plot.T
1. Chapter 1

Salle sat in front of her stylist at the OKYO Salon, getting her hair colored for the second time this month. She was out for another reason too; to intercept Jen and Zel in the middle of their weeklong shopping binge, courtesy of herself.

I'm in luck, Salle thought, as the co-eds shouldered onto the floor. Two harried looking college boys staggered under the weight of shopping bags, purses and other high-end purchases.

Zel sighed contentedly and flopped into an empty chair.

"Ugh! Salle, you could have gotten us a valet or something to carry our stuff!"

One of the boys groaned.

"Shut up!" Jen hissed, then flashed Salle a bright smile. "Thanks for the trip! We blew almost twenty-five thousand dollars today!"

"Good for you," Salle said encouragingly. "Are you girls having fun?"

Both girls nodded and giggled.

"Okay, now be good ladies and get back to campus tomorrow. You have to show off those clothes, remember?" Salle looked at an embellished logo. "Is that Prada? Nice choice."

Jen squealed and fished out a hand to high-five Salle. Then she noticed what Salle was doing.

"You're coloring your hair again? God, your roots must be growing out so fast; what are you eating? I heard açai berries make your nails and hair grow really fast."

Salle nodded. "Run along now." The girls departed with a flourish, tired young men in tow.

The stylist was finished. "Thanks, Mindi. Color, highlights, lowlights? How much do I owe?"

Salle tipped Mindi generously, paid cash for the service, and bowed out, declining a glass of white wine and Godiva chocolates. Some Americans are truly wonderful to know.

The air was brisk for March. On the way back to her apartment, she inspected her hair in the mirror. No trace of grey roots, no more split ends. Salle pulled her wrap tighter around her and walked home.


	2. One Karat

Chapter 1 – 2 Agent Gibbs Gets Rung

"Yeah, Gibbs."

This was actually a crucial time in the bullpen. Things with Chinese drug gangs and smugglers were coming to a head over in Anacostia; DiNozzo and Ziva were already there, but in the process of tangling with some drunk teenagers and needed backup.

There was a pause on the line.

The first thing he heard was giggling. "Heyyy, is Trent there?"

"Trent?" Gibbs shouted into his phone. "How did you get this number?"

"Is this Trent's phone?" More whispers and hushed giggling.

"Who is this?" Gibbs motioned for McGee to start the trace.

"Um, this is Zel. We met…the other Saturday?"

McGee's fingers flew over the keyboard. "Boss, the caller is located in a Georgetown U dorm room."

Zel persisted. "Is this Trent's phone? Where is he?"

"Trent's not here." Gibbs' voice was clipped. "Don't call this number again."

"Wait! How do I get him? She wanted his number?"

Gibbs slammed his open phone onto his desk, by proxy shutting off its power. "McGee, I wanna know who that was, why she called and why the hell she has my number!"

"On it, boss," McGee was curious too, and logged onto Facebook for some answers. Abby would want to be in on this too.

"So," Abby began, with McGee listening on. "We have…Zel Francis and Jennifer Harris. Normal, rich, spoiled Georgetown twenty-somethings without direction or focus." She turned the monitor.

"Zel has a profile picture featuring her in Gucci head-to-toe and Jen has a Myspace-type shot featuring her hip bones. They have status updates mentioning someone called Salle Silver. No information available on her. No Facebook, e-mail, credit card, nothing. Not even fingerprints. And yet she managed to send Zel and Jen on a weeklong shopping trip, and out of a week of classes."

"So this woman has no bank records? Bills? Statements?" McGee was shocked.

"She bought twenty-six thousand dollars in pre-paid debit cards with cash," Abby told him, delighted. "We _do_ have a camera angle on her at the Chase bank."

"Tell me something I don't know, Abs." Gibbs cruised into the lab, Caf-Pow in hand. Abby reached for it.

"Nuh-uh. Show me the footage first." Abby obligingly pulled up the video on the plasma.

"First, we have the steps. She walks in with a duffel bag—totally wrong with her outfit. She goes up to the window, and requests the aforementioned. Teller gives her a weird look."

Abby fast-forwarded a time-lapse over 15 minutes. "She takes out two-hundred and sixty hundred dollar bills and places them down. You can see the manager standing behind her. She completes the transaction, Ink cards in hand, and leaves." The plasma went dark.

"So? What about her ties her to my cell phone?"

"Well, Gibbs, we haven't figured out yet. But we have figured out one thing."

"What?"

"We have Trent Kort."

McGee scoffed. "Weasel-man." The others stared at him. "What? That's Tony's name for him."

Gibbs turned from McGee and faced Abby again. "Let's find her. Bring her in." He turned to leave. "Call Trent Kort—he's going to help us find her."

As soon as Gibbs left, Abby stared at McGee with distaste. "You just had to go there, didn't you?"


	3. 15K TW

1.5 Karats (TW)

It was Tuesday, and Trent was returning the company car he had borrowed on Thursday out of necessity. Being called several times by the squirrely CIA staffer attached to his department was annoying and useless. Perhaps it was his only job to keep tabs on Kort; the guy was incredibly nosy and almost impossible to avoid during the day.

"Yeah, I'll get the car right back to the garage. No, I haven't filled it up yet. Will you leave off nagging and let me do my job? Oh, right…I'm at a desk again."

"But Mr. Kort, you are needed at Quantico!"

"Yeah, right. And who authorized you to make this call? My lunch break is an hour."

"No, Mr. Kort, our division manager allotted you thirty minutes from now until December. You must report to the Navy yard."

"What for?"

"NCIS, Mr. Kort. The request was phoned in by an agent on the team of Special Agent Lerory Jethro Gibbs."

"Ah, shit." Maybe he wouldn't be hauled up before Vance for giving out Gibbs' number. Kort pulled his weapon out of its holster at his hip and stuck it in his belt, feeling murderous but oddly relieved. At least he wouldn't be pencil pushing this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Gibbs' team was dealing with a full case load. Stacks of file folders littered the desktops, yet nothing real was happening. It was one of those days when a call-out wasn't warranted for any particular crime, and Ziva, McGee and DiNozzo were fishing. The international drug ring in DC had been taken over by the DEA and was off the table for the moment. Nobody knew where Gibbs was, but McGee pointed out that he was probably as bored as everyone else.

"So, now what?" Ziva had been up particularly late the night before and was impatient with the whole situation.

"Well, I am looking at different flags that have gone up since we traced the call to the boss' cell. Turns out, I talked to the parents of the girl who called looking for Trent. Looks like she's stayed on campus all day, but there has been some suspicious activity on her bank statements. Take a look." Ziva and Tony stood in front of the plasma, joined by Gibbs and Vance.

"And? What about her that is so special? What did her mom say?" Ziva persisted.

"Her mom's great-aunt became some kind of millionaire late in her life. Some kind of investment. She left a lot of money to Zel, but it's in a trust fund and not available to the girl until she's either twenty-five or both her parents are dead." He clicked the remote again to freeze the screen. "Her parents live in Columbus."

"Well, McGee, turns out we're not the only ones looking at Zel Harris and her family." Vance handed a paper to Gibbs. "Moreover, seems as though more than one federal agency has been investigating at her patron, Salle Silver. Take a look at this." He pointed to a paragraph. "She was a person of interest, or someone with her name and fitting her description, during the Red Scare in the communist era. The CIA."

Gibbs looked at Vance, then at McGee.

"What the hell? That was in the sixties! McGee, I want her found. Hold her. And don't call the CIA until I say so. Trent Kort is on his way here, to explain." Gibbs glared at Vance.

"Remember, Gibbs, I don't want that piece of slimy shark bait in my house. Whatever it is that you're doing, do it discreetly. I don't want any coverage, especially from the press, and I sure as hell don't want a cover _up_. One whiff of this leaked to the media and SecNav would have me out of my office before the week is up." Vance turned to leave and thought better of it.

"Keep in mind Gibbs, that if you bring in Kort, you have no suspicion of wrongdoing. Do not interrogate him. Do not detain him. Do not breathe on him. We need him back to Langley before the end of the day. And don't let him get comfy. This is not the time or the place." He left, but not before glancing at Tony.

"What did I do to deserve that?"

Ziva enlightened him. "He knows you are a media _horde_and live for attention. Talking loosely about something like this would be right up your way."

"Alley," Tony muttered.

McGee tutted. "She's right, Tony. Best keep this between us."

"Correction. Let's keep this quiet." Gibbs was unmoved. "Silently."

Everyone took the hint and the only sound was keyboards and Tony's quiet, "D'oh!" when he stapled his desk. Finally the soft _ding!_ heralded the arrival of the CIA ex-operative to the squadroom.

Kort strolled up to Gibbs and halted before his desk. "Here I am, what do you want?"

"I want nothing, Kort, except why you gave my number to that girl who called me. What possessed you to even do that?"

"Oh, I don't know Gibbs. I was bored, I was drunk, and I was looking for some cheap fun. I was behind your van in a company car on Saturday and saw some girls and DiNozzo and thought it might be a little fun to take one of them out for a bit. She knew someone who wanted my number and I thought it might be a little fun to mess with you."

Tony turned pale. "You…a college girl…at night? I let you get away with that?"

"Hell yeah, DiNozzo. Don't worry your pretty little head, nothing happened. I just dropped her back off at the hotel."

"Which hotel?" Gibbs was writing in his notepad.

"Dunno," Trent said carelessly. "Didn't know if it was the right one, but who cares? She thought I was good looking, that's all."

Ziva snorted. "And she said that. To you."

Tony stared at Trent, saucer-eyed. "And you didn't drug her. Nothing."

"Well, a little shot of…"

Gibbs stood up. "I don't wanna hear any more of this nonsense, Trent. I want to know about the woman who wanted yours."

Trent also drew himself to his full height. "What I want to know is what you _do _know. I figure I'm never going to find her on my own. My security clearance has been temporarily suspended."

"So you're using us to meet girls." McGee looked at Trent over his monitor.

"Shut up, McGee. Nobody asked you."

Gibbs pointed towards the door and gave Kort the stare.

"All right, I'm gonna go. Just saying, if you find out anything, you'll let me know, right?"

There was a resounding "No."

"Whatever."

As soon as Kort left, Tony burst into laughter. "If he thinks it's some kind of beach babe who's supposed to be calling him, he's in for a surprise. Salle Silver must be at least 70."

"I need to see Abby and Duck. Something's not right. And I don't like it." Gibbs made a beeline for Abby's lab.

"No. Salle Silver is maybe twenty five, twenty seven at the most." Abby and Ducky had reached the same conclusion.

"Jethro, as a student of anatomy, I can tell you that Salle Silver is under thirty years old. There has to be another Salle Silver, or it could be a family name or indicator of a certain line of business. Gibbs, she cannot be the same person. I am sure of it."

"But you're not fully convinced."

"Jethro, there are things in this world that are not easily understood. Don't get too deeply involved. There's no reason to delve further into this."

"What are you afraid of, Duck? Why be so cautious?"

"Because, Jethro, I am also a student of history and can tell you that throughout time there have always been whispers of these sort of peculiarity. Take Oxford, for instance. Some of the old dons, if I correctly understand it, are over two hundred years old. Of course, no one has actually seen them in years, but a lot of rumors are that several of them never left campus since the eighteenth century, alive or dead."

"No, Duck. I look at the file and bring her in, whoever she is. She knows something. My gut tells me that she's trying to get to the CIA, and here we found her right in our lap. If the CIA gets ahold of her, no one will ever hear from her again. I need to know what she knows."

Ducky pursued Gibbs. "What you _think_ she knows! Jethro, there is no way to turn back the past! Stop this at once!"

Gibbs paused at the elevator. "Ducky, you know I'm not superstitious. But this isn't just for me. This might be the conspiracy of our lifetime, and I don't want to be left in the dark. If this can teach us anything about the future, we'll be the first to find out. Coordinate with Abby. Start a profile."

Author's Note: I am not going to give you any TRUE spoilers, but I will say that A. This is not about vampires or witches or mutants and B. This is going to have a supernatural lean. Get used to it. Also, Trent Kort will not be a prominent love interest. This may be fleshed out later in the plotline. R/R, Please?


End file.
